World News – US – Few police officers who cause deaths are charged or convicted

A large gap remains between the public perception of police violence and the way it is handled in court

Since Breonna Taylor was awoken in the night and shot by police in her own home, Louisville has banned warrants without hitting A police chief fired, as has a police officer who was at the scene But despite claims from across the country, no one has been charged in Ms. Taylor’s death

The Kentucky Attorney General on Wednesday announced much less serious charges of gratuitous endangerment against one of the officers involved in the raid, and none against the two who shot Ms. Taylor six times

The lack of an indictment of murder or manslaughter has been a scandal to many – but not a surprise

Few police officers are charged with murder or manslaughter when causing death in the line of duty, and only about a third of these officers are convicted

Even as tens of thousands of Americans protest police brutality and demand an overhaul of law enforcement, a yawning gap remains between the public perception of police violence and the way it is handled in front of law enforcement officials. law courts

“On March 13 – in the months following the handling of this case, our dedicated team of prosecutors and investigators, with over 200 years of combined career experience, conducted a thorough investigation to gain insight the events leading up to Ms Taylor’s death After hearing testimony from our team of prosecutors, the grand jury voted in favor of returning an indictment against Detective Hankison on three counts of gratuitous endangerment , for putting the three people in apartment 3 at risk of serious injury or death for no reason The first count, endangerment in the first degree, is a Class D felony, and if convicted, the accused can serve up to five years on each count.Reporter: « Mr. Cameron, Mr. Cameron, Rukmini Callimachi with the New York Times – right here – » « Yes, sorry » « Hello, two questions for you: No 1, you said she was shot six times, but her death certificate says five Can you explain the discrepancy? And the second thing is that the reporters in this room, including me, took down this apartment complex looking for witnesses, to the point that you said about the beatings and the announcements About ten witnesses I spoke to, only one, a man who was right upstairs, heard them announce Do you think that is enough, in the middle of the night when someone is sleeping, for one person in a welded building heard that? Is this a sufficient way to advertise? « Well, let me try to answer your second question first. Your question was, is that enough for me? » I think the most relevant question is, what evidence was provided to the grand jury? What was sufficient for their purposes? They got here, listened to all the testimony and determined that Detective Hankison was the one to be charged – charged – knowing all the relative points that you raised So there was a bullet that was lodged – and the bullet might be too generous a term – there was an object that was lodged in, in one of his feet And that’s what we call the sixth, I guess, the projectile My job is to present the facts to the grand jury, and the grand jury then applies those facts to the law If we are just acting on emotion or outrage, there is no justice Popular justice is not justice Justice sought by violence is not justice It just becomes revenge I certainly understand the pain of the tragic loss of Ms Taylor I understand that as Attorney General, who is in charge of the 120 counties as chief legal officer, chief law enforcement officer I understand that I understand that as a black man how painful it is, that is why he was so incredibly important to make sure that we were doing everything we could to find out t all the facts »

In the case against the Minneapolis officers charged with the murder of George Floyd, whose videotaped death in May shocked the country and was almost universally exposed, Attorney General Keith Ellison warned of the difficulty in prosecuting judicial officers

« Trying this case will not be easy Winning a conviction will be difficult, » said M Ellison said in June, even as he announced he was laying the charge of second degree murder against one of the officers, Derek Chauvin « History shows that there are obvious challenges here »

Union protections that protect police officers from timely investigations, legal standards that give them the benefit of the doubt, and the tendency to take police at their word have contributed to few convictions and short prison time for officers who kill In addition, misconduct and poor judgment do not always amount to criminality

Although state statutes vary, officers are generally permitted to use lethal force if they reasonably perceive imminent danger – a standard that has been criticized as being too subjective and prone to racial bias

« The police know what to say and what to say to the jury and what to say to a judge to make these people believe they were reasonably afraid, » said Kate Levine, professor at Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law in New York City « Even if there are other witnesses, these witnesses just don’t get the same level of credibility from prosecutors, judges and jurors »

Law enforcement kills around 1,000 people a year in the United States Since the start of 2005, 121 officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter in murders on duty, according to data compiled by Philip M Stinson, professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio Of the 95 officers whose cases have been completed, 44 have been convicted, but often on a lesser charge, he said

Convictions include cases like the murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago, for which Jason Van Dyke was sentenced to almost seven years in prison, and the murder of Justine Damond in Minneapolis, for which Mohamed Noor was sentenced to 12 years5 years

Many officers who avoided criminal convictions were fired, like three of the other officers in the McDonald case, and Daniel Pantaleo, who used a stranglehold on Eric Garner in Staten Island

More recently, agents involved in the death of Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta were promptly charged with Mister Murder. Brooks’s case in particular appears to reflect changing standards; because he grabbed and shot an officer’s Taser before he was killed, several experts said they doubted charges would have been laid if the death had occurred before the wave of protests and police control who followed M Floyd’s death

But two cases don’t prove prosecutors have become more willing – or bowed to increased pressure – to hold police officers criminally accountable Professor Stinson said such a rise has so far been statistically insignificant and several equally important investigations into the police killings did not result in any indictment

Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo, in 2014 illustrates the disconnect between public opinion and the reality of the prosecution: after nationwide protests against his death and a federal review of the case, the officer, Darren Wilson, has not been charged

In July, Wesley Bell, the prosecutor elected after Mr. Brown’s death, infamously announced that after further examination he would not seek a charge, although he added that his decision had not « exonerated » Mr. Wilson « Whether we can prove a case at trial is different than clearing him of any wrongdoing, » he said

This week, the attorney’s office in Tucson, Ariz. reached a similar conclusion in the death of Carlos Ingram Lopez, citing « insufficient evidence of a crime, » despite what the police chief had described as violations of policy Mr. Lopez died in police custody naked, handcuffed and face down

With the growing calls for change, a few states have attempted to facilitate the accountability of agents

In Washington state last month, an officer was charged with murder under a 2019 law that eliminated the requirement that prosecutors had to prove that a police officer had acted « maliciously. » Stephon Clark’s death in his grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento, no criminal charges have been brought against officers, California has tightened its standard of use of force from reasonable to necessary

But situations in which the police faced an armed individual are always difficult to prosecute

In a case like Ms Taylor, for example, the fact that her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot the police initially mattered more – in criminal law – than any wrong decision or shoddy police work that led the officers to break down his door in the first place

« I understand why people are surprised, because the circumstances which led to Ms. Taylor’s death was preventable and unacceptable from the perspective of how the police treated her and Ms. Walker that night, ”said Taryn Merkl, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice and former federal prosecutor.

In recent months, some proponents of criminal justice reform have argued that prosecutors may even be counterproductive because they avoid tackling systemic issues and, in the words of Professor Levine , allowed the general white public and the politicians who represent them to sit quietly in the belief that the problem cops got their reason « 

These advocates point to an inherent contradiction between wanting to end over-incarceration and wanting to send police – including police of color, like Mr. Noor – in jail « As long as the public views these lawsuits as a judgment ordered against white police officers on behalf of people of color, it just isn’t that simple, » Professor Levine wrote

Last month, Essence magazine ran an op-ed written by two black prison abolitionists titled: « We Want More Justice For Breonna Taylor Than The System That Killed Her Can Deliver » The authors, Mariame Kaba and Andrea J Ritchie, did not say that police officers should not be prosecuted, but that « the collective responses rooted in arrests and prosecutions are likely to lead to dead ends and deep disappointments. »

Louisville Metro Police Department, Protest, Louisville